Hotel Heppie is a unique initiative by the Dutch foundation, Het Vergeten Kind (“The Forgotten Child”), dedicated to providing a safe, stimulating environment for children in vulnerable situations across the Netherlands. The hotel operates on a “Climate of Care” approach, ensuring a structured setting where safety, positive reinforcement, and individual attention are paramount.
The Vierhouten location, officially opened in June 2024, significantly expands the foundation's capacity. The site includes a main group building for 60 children, six family apartments, and shared facilities like a playground, theater, and meeting spaces.
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We wanted a locking system that lets us act quickly if a tag goes missing. Salto makes that possible without having to replace all locks.
The primary challenge for Hotel Heppie was finding an access control system that could maintain the facility’s high standards for child safety while simultaneously simplifying management for the staff and volunteers.
The hotel’s entire design is focused on the children’s needs, which extends to their ability to easily and safely access spaces. As an environment hosting vulnerable children and a large rotating volunteer base, the system needed to be exceptionally responsive to security needs.
- Simple management: The system had to be intuitive for administrators to manage access rights for a large, frequently changing group of users (children, parents, staff, and volunteers).
- Instant adaptability: Given the vulnerability of the guests and the high usage rate, a key requirement was the ability to quickly and easily update the system if a user tag was lost or misplaced.
- Eliminate costly re-keying: The solution needed to eliminate the necessity of replacing physical locks or cylinders when a credential was lost, minimizing disruption and cost.
- User-centric flexibility: The system had to be adaptable enough to grant personalized access rights to different groups, ensuring each user (or group) could only enter relevant areas.
Hotel Heppie’s intensive use required an access solution that can handle high traffic and diverse user groups:
- During school holidays and weekends, the site is populated by children, parents, and approximately 600 rotating volunteers.
- Outside of peak periods, the facility serves children from special education programs.
To support this project requirements, Salto and its Business Partner, Polvo, collaborated to deliver a tailor-made access control solution that upholds the hotel’s “Climate of Care” by prioritizing simplicity, security, user experience, and flexibility.
The Hotel Heppie team chose Salto’s pioneering facility access, identity management, and electronic locking technology solution for its intuitive use and adaptable system running on the Salto Space smart access platform.
Designed to secure any door in a building and make access control more effortless and secure than ever, Salto Space delivers Hotel Heppie flexible access control with a unified software and hardware platform.
The core of the solution lies in the concept of “One smart key for everything”, simplifying the user experience for guests, visitors, and staff alike. Every type of access across the site – bedroom doors, technical areas, main entrances, storage units secured by padlocks, and even external entrance gates – is managed using a single electronic tag.
The Salto solution combines the reliability, security, and scalability of an on-premise access control solution with the flexibility and availability of stand-alone SVN networked electronic locking technology. Salto deployed a comprehensive electronic access control system across the Vierhouten location, covering 40 doors with smart hardware:
- Interior doors: Equipped with XS4 Mini Metal electronic escutcheons.
- Perimeter access: Fitted with XS4 Original+ and SKG-certified self-locking multi-point locks for maximum security.
- Specialty access: Neo cylinders were installed on various doors, with six Neoxx padlocks (both large and small) securing outdoor storage and utility areas. Lockers were also equipped with smart locker locks.
- Simplified user-level management: Staff can easily and efficiently configure precise access rights for different groups (granting access only to specific rooms, meeting areas, or staff sections), ensuring maximum security and peace of mind.
- Intuitive use: The “one smart key” approach ensures the system is easy to use for administrators, staff, volunteers, and guests.
- Remote management ready: The system is set up for remote building management capabilities, with a service contract available for maintenance and remote support, laying out a strong foundation for the future.
- Fits any door and access point with a complete hardware and electronic locking platform.
- A single platform unifying access control, smart credentials, and web security management software.
Hotel Heppie is a unique initiative by the Dutch foundation, Het Vergeten Kind (“The Forgotten Child”), dedicated to providing a safe, stimulating environment for children in vulnerable situations across the Netherlands.
